Evolution of a Preservation Agency: Centre County’s Historic Registration Project

Posted by Martha Birchenall on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Evolution of a Preservation Agency: Centre County’s Historic Registration Project The commemoration of America’s Bicentennial gave birth to numerous community-minded pursuits during its nationwide celebra­tion. Although many of these special endeavors were shelved when the year was over, the administrators of one at least. the Historic Registration Project in Centre County. realized that their work had just begun. Now, four years later, this unique organization is still...
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Pennsylvania Architectural Heritage: The Preservation Movement in the Keystone State, 1800-1950

Posted by John Snyder on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvania Architectural Heritage: The Preservation Movement in the Keystone State, 1800-1950 The primary focus of this series of four articles is the architectural heritage of Pennsylvania through the past three centuries. However, in the context of history, architecture is neither an isolated creation nor an assured cultural resource for the future. As buildings ore the products of the interaction of many facets of a society, so. too, the preservation of architecture is the result of...
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On the Trail of Frank Furness

Posted by Anne Cook on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on On the Trail of Frank Furness An historic sites survey is rightfully likened to a trea­sure hunt. A game of discovery, it relies on clues obtained from old maps, diaries, photographs, newspapers and countless other sources to lead to the awaiting bounty. Rather than finding a pot of gold, the historic sites survey, through its identification and documentation of old buildings, is rewarded by the discovery of pattern and...
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Pennsylvania’s Architectural Heritage: The Preservation Movement in the Keystone State, 1950-1981

Posted by John Snyder on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvania’s Architectural Heritage: The Preservation Movement in the Keystone State, 1950-1981 As the last in a four-part series about Pennsylvania s architecture, this conclusion focuses on the develop­ments which have occurred in the field of preservation over the past thirty years. Although this temporal division may seem disproportionate when com­pared with the one hundred fifty years covered in rite preceding article. it has been dictated by both the incentives and challenges to...
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Presence from the Past: A Gift to the Future Through Historic Preservation

Posted by Brent Glass on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Presence from the Past: A Gift to the Future Through Historic Preservation The United States is a nation and a people on the move. It is in an era of mobility and change … The result is a feeling of rootlessness combined with a longing for those land­marks of the past which give us a sense of stability and belonging … If the preservation movement is to be successful, it must go beyond saving bricks and mortar. It must go beyond saving occasional historic...
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Lost and Found

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Lost and Found Lost Charles Bailey built a log barn in the Potter County seat of Coudersport in 1900. He employed the most primitive log-building technique, using logs in their natural round shape which he joined together with simple saddle notches, requiring them to extend beyond each corner in a rustic manner. An oddity for its time, Bailey’s twentieth-century barn appeared more rustic and primitive...
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Preserving Philadelphia: A Conversation with Charles E. Peterson, F.A.I.A.

Posted by William Kashatus on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Preserving Philadelphia: A Conversation with Charles E. Peterson, F.A.I.A. Those who know Philadelphia realize that it is an enormously important city with an illustrious, prestigious past. By many it is called the birthplace of a nation, by others the cra­dle of liberty. The United States was cre­ated in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Indepen­dence. The principles of the American Revolution were...
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Bookshelf

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Pennsylvania Architecture: The Historic American Buildings Survey, 1933-1990 By Deborah Stephens Bums and Richard J. Web­ster, with Candace Reed Stem Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 2000 (629 pages; cloth, $85.00; paper, $65.00) This hefty volume befits its subject: it is a landmark book devoted to landmark buildings. Copiously illustrated, Pennsylvania Architecture: The Historic...
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Lost and Found

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Lost and Found Lost Pennsylvania Architecture: The Historic American Buildings Survey, 1933-1990, recently published by the Pennsylvania and Historical Museum Commission (see “Bookshelf” in the fall 2000 issue) contains a number of vintage images of buildings and structures that, regrettably, no longer grace the landscape. The Horace Coleman House in northwestern Pennsylvania is just one example....
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Lost and Found

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Lost and Found Lost For their country estates, many affluent Americans favored the Italianate style, which became es­pecially popular for suburban mansions by the mid-nineteenth century. Noted Philadelphia architect John Notman (1810-1865) designed Alverthorpe in Abington Township, Montgomery County, for Joshua Francis Fisher. One of the most distinctive features of the mansion, erected in 1850, was its...
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